Wednesday, September 4, 2013

The following story of Dragon*Con 2013 is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies, and in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is... no.

I quote the Simpsons because at Con, sometimes it's difficult to discern between fantasy and reality. One moment you're walking down a non descript hotel connecting skybridge, the next you're bumping into an unimpressed thunder God who tries to brain you with his hammer. One moment, you're sitting in a plain restaurant pub waiting for your food with other patrons, the next a red Stormtrooper with gold bling and a boom box is commanding you to bust a move to his funky beats. It's MADNESS! ORGASMIC GEEKY MADNESS!

So yeah, last year, the fabulous heroine Super Muffin Girl issued the command for me to insert Con on my trip to Europe. I left feeling a bit like Morpheus had levered open my mouth, crammed that sweet ass red pill down my throat and showed me the SWEET TRUTH.

I left, vowing to return! And this past week... I did just that. And somehow, someway... this year not only surpassed the last, it blew it out of the sky just like Loki blew Nick Fury's stupid helicopter out of the sky with the Tesseract!

And so I flew, 23 hours across the face of the Earth to be met with two heroines and two heroes holding signs at the airport, welcoming me in a way that I would understand in my local vernacular. After being proclaimed a "Spoon!" and a "Bloody Legend!" by their signs, My fellow Scott, Mr. Spillman thrust some vodka infused gummi bears into my hand and it was ON.

After a spirited discussion of Iron Man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy, Excelsis, Aldrich Killian and most of all, the atrocity that is Ben Affleck as Batman, the train arrived near our hotel. The following day... it was time to LEAN INTO THIS SHIT. Deciding that the costumed action would wait until Friday, we still managed to use our combined nerdy powers to hijack a shuttle and have it drive us to the line of registration to get our badges. How did we do this? Professor Xavier-esque mind powers. And... maybe a little of the fact that it was a freely available hotel shuttle service and we didn't have to hijack it at all. We did the patented 'back and forth line shuffle' up and down the aisles and got the badges, along the way seeing a collection of ELITE t shirts including an Oregon Trail shirt with a T-Rex proclaiming "You have died by temporal anomaly". And if you don't get that... you're lame.

Myself, the Superest of Muffin Girls and the Patrickest of Connellys then journeyed to the nearby World Of Coke. It was great, apart from a few small hiccups. One, I was chosen to take part in a game where we used touch screen sensors on a big screen to solve mysteries and discover the secret recipe of Coke. All well and good, but they also chose a collection of USELESS CHILDREN to take part. Using my elite skills, I solved all the mysteries and pulled all the levers on my side of the screen while the children fumbled around doing what I hope was a stupid dance and not epileptic attempts to actually play the game. After an eternity, the kids finally completed their mission and we progressed. Hiccup two was the fact that in my wisdom I had elected to wear my "The rules don't just say you're wrong, they say you're a DICK!" t shirt to this family oriented tourist destination. Of course, this couldn't do, and so the Coke people VICIOUSLY CENSORED ME when I tried to get a picture with the Coke Polar Bear. This was AFTER the damn bear had practically tried to molest Shanon. So apparently, the Polar Bear can practically fondle himself over the hot girls but I can't have a t-shirt that says dick. They attempted to make it up to me by letting me sample 64 soft drinks from around the world, but the damage was done.

That night, was the traditional Sushi Dinner and Pool Party that I missed last year by arriving a day late. Yes, that was exceedingly dumb of me. I put that under 'mistakes I will never make again' right above "Telling the security guard the replica tesseract staff is a weapon of mass destructive potential" and below "Wearing a dick shirt at the World of Coke". I got quite drunk, which I put down to a tag team of Scott and Hannah, the former handed me the fireball whiskey and the latter taunting me for drinking it too slowly. Oh well, it resulted in drunken pool conversations regarding Space Wolves and Chaos Space Marines so I can't really be mad about it. In between all of this action, Shanon attempted to kill me by feeding me cheese and I met my valiant opponent who last year had destroyed me at a game of drinking 'Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock'.

Fireball Whiskey. Drink it and you'll be breathing fire like you were injected with Excelsis by Aldrich Killian.

The next morning, I felt surprisingly okay. One of my comrades though, did not. I will protect their identity by referring to them by a pseudonym. So, yeah, Mega Cake Lady just managed to get out of the elevator after breakfast before depositing it into a nearby trash receptacle. Poor thing. I don't know what was the culprit, but my theory is a lethal mix of cake vodka, cider and fireball whiskey or some evil variant. We soldiered on though. And that morning, it was time to become legendary heroes (or in my case, wicked villains). I became Loki, rightful king of Asgard and epic righteous dickknob extraordinaire. Shanon became my heroic counterpart, Girl Thor, complete with Mjolnir that had to be repaired after airport security broke it. Patrick became Spike from Buffy, largely because with his bleached hair he looks so much like him that all he has to do is walk past and women go spontaneously gooey. We escorted Amber from our room to her own over at the Marriott. However, she had many bags and nobody to help carry them, and so Loki, the demi god was reduced to her own personal bag bitch. Only at Dragon*Con.

Loki does NOT do bags.

Walking round the hotels and the dealer rooms comes the ultimate nerdy thrill. Other people love your costume and want to take pictures with you. Actually, in all seriousness, I am hereby recommending this practice to the Mental Health Council as a drop dead cure for depression. Grab somebody, throw them in an Iron Man suit, and get them to Dragon*Con. Then watch as a girl in a Pepper Potts costume with a Stark Industries folder finds them and voila! Happiness assured! Two of my personal favorite Friday encounters was an encounter with a group doing my adversaries the Avengers in the dealer room, and a parent stopping me because their little kid loved Loki, but then they couldn't get the picture right because the kid kept just standing next to my leg and looking at me in awe.

Me as Loki and Shanon as Thor.

Friday night brought with it The Avengers Ball in the Westin Ballroom. It was once again, unbelievably awesome. Many Avengers, many girl Lokis, much singing, much dancing and much Loki and Spike throwing up for the West Side whilst girl Captain America looks on ashamed. There's something about a room full of Avengers characters dancing to 90s classics whilst I held the Tesseract in one hand and a bottle of cider in the other that just screams happiness. On the way out I converted a poor Hawkeye to be my slave with the Tesseract, however I failed to do the same to a Tony Stark who foiled me with a cleverly placed Ark reactor over his heart.

Saturday is typically a quieter day/night at Con for us, largely because everyone is gearing up for the massive 'finish all the alcohol' Sunday night, and also because this time we were scurrying all around Con trying to find a lost wallet that fell out of the pockets of a Scott Pilgrim costume. Dammit!! That afternoon, there was a Lollipop Chainsaw photo shoot that fulfilled all of my hopes and dreams by getting me to lay down in front of 5 Lollipop Chainsaws as they carved me up with their chainsaws. Fuck YEAH. Then, that night, Lokiwi of Asgard Zealand came out for the last time along with an awe inspiring classic Batman ensemble courtesy of Amber as Batgirl, Shanon as Robin and Patrick as the nefarious RIDDLER. DAMN YOU RIDDLER!! DAMN YOUUUUU!!!!

In my final close encounters of the Loki kind, I managed to encounter a group of 7 (!!) Girl Thors, who were accompanying a male Thor who looked about as cut and massive as the actual Chris Hemsworth. I thought of battling them all, but then decided submission was perhaps poignant and instead knelt down as they clamped their powerful Asgardian hands on my shoulder for a photo. This was definitely in the Top 5 moments of my nerdy existence. Finally, to cap off the night, I was tapped on the shoulder and told that I should go up on the loft above and yell out for the entire room to kneel before me. I thought this was a fantastic idea, however I was not quite drunk enough to dispense with all of my inhibitions and actually do it. But I vowed that I would next year. So hold me to that people! In other news from this night, I was told that my sultry foreign voice could curl girl's toes. No, I am not making this up.

We awoke on Sunday to the final full day of Con. That night was the annual tradition of the Minions cramming into a hotel room and judging the costume masquerade, complete with many hilarious remarks, huge amounts of drunkenness and Duck Dodgers in the 24.5th Century! This year was just as good as the last as I advocated longly and loudly for the victory of the Spider Man with broken legs, and the others made many sheep jokes at my expense. Oh, and they dubbed the Avengers group who did historical twists on their costumes as "The New Zealand Avengers". Thanks guys. I grabbed a comedic 'KAPOW!" sign from last night's Batman ensemble costume and we took to the halls and lobbies of the Con hotels (packed to the brim with Stormtroopers, Wolverines, Avengers, Deadpools and one asleep sheep) for one final night of debauchery. While I was no longer Loki, the spirit of drunken villainy remained alive inside me, and I interjected my unwanted 'KAPOW' sign in as many other people's photos as possible. Because in lieu of ruling Asgard, I supposed random Kapowings was a worthwhile second prize. It was another incredible night that words can't really do justice to, and after much sad partings and hugs, we finally retired and the greatness of Con drew to a close for another year.

The next day, I bought myself an awesome "Science Bros" t shirt featuring Iron Man and Hulk, said goodbyes and flew away back home with a treasure trove of memories and a fucking TESSERACT in a box. Ladies and gentleman, life doesn't get much better than this. Cannot wait to do it all again next year, and thank you to everyone who helped make it awesome!

If you want to help finance next year's trip to Dragon*Con... I am writing a series of sci-fi/mystery/epic books, you could always buy them :) *ULTIMATE CHEAP PLUG CHEAP PLUG ALERT*

As I once said and will say again; This is my place. These are my people.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Look people, this is a public service announcement and I'm only going to say this once, for everyone's benefit. I am fucking tired of wasting my oxygen with the meaningless platitudes that 95% of society have somehow misconstured as 'conversation'. So I am throwing down the gauntlet. I officially REFUSE to interact with anybody except those in my life with boredom free passes on these topics EVER AGAIN. If they are brought up around me you will get one of two responses. One, I will turn around walk away and ignore you, thus laying down the social smackdown. Two, I will withdraw my trusty butter knife and skewer you like a kebab. It depends on my whims on that given day.
1. The Weather
Oh fuck the hatred is boiling over already. Why the fuck is this shit the default topic of conversation in modern society?? My theory is it's because the average work a day mush bleater has the intelligence of a gnat stuck in porridge. I think it's a solid theory myself, I confirm it empirically every time some malfunctioning slime brain brings up the fucking weather to me and I realise they have the intellectual sophistication of a discarded can of 7Up. Here is the usual pattern. If it's hot people whine the fuck out of it being hot. When it's cold people whine the fuck out of it being cold. When it's summer they want winter. When it's winter they want summer. When it's fucking spring or autumn they want summer or winter to hurry up and get here already. The common denominator among all of these categories of whining and bleating is the net total amount of fucks I give. Ie NONE. NEVER BRING UP THE WEATHER AGAIN. EVER. It's just like bringing up the colour of the fucking wall paint. NOT INTERESTING. NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. NOT EVEN IF I HAVE A FUCKING LOBOTOMY.
The Exception: The only exception, the only bloody time I want to hear about the damn weather is this. Listen and listen well. If it is hailing full blown ice WHILST a volcano is erupting and earthquakes are ravaging the city, I might let you talk to me about it. Keyword: MIGHT.2. The affairs of celebrities.OMG KANYE WEST CHEATED ON KIM KARDASHIAN!! The bigger news is the baffling reason why on Earth you would care, and then care enough to actually bring this up to me in our conversation when I have expressed no interest whatsoever in the minutiae of the lives of Kanye and Kim. And trust me, I have NEVER and would NEVER express such an interest unless extremely doped up on goofballs. I will not tolerate you investing any of my time in the lives of people I will never meet, talk to or even see passing me by on the fucking street. This is the reason the world is so SCREWED, because instead of reading books about philosophy, self improvement or classic literature, you READ ABOUT KIM KARDASHIAN!! AND YOU ACTUALLY CARE!!! If I could, I would create a vortex of wasted emotion where every single person who gives a shit about the affairs of celebrities has their feelings sucked out into an inescapable void as punishment for wasting them on such feculant, redundant shit.The Exception: If you actually ARE a celebrity, and you happen to be talking to me for some reason I cannot fathom (Hey, I do know a model!! *CoughcoughJuellescametovisitmecoughcough** *Self adulating plug alert*) then feel free to talk about your own affairs. 3. CarsNo, I do not care about your car. I do not care about ANY car. I don't care about the modifications you've had done, how many fuck knuckle revs per minute you can get from it or the fact that painting it hot pink makes you feel great about your cuteness and femininity. There are two reasons I don't have one of these things. 1. Because it's a societal monetary black hole of conformity and motorised debt. 2. Because I don't want to become one of those absolute dipshits who take their hunk of metal they're paying shitloads per month to insure as an extension of their penis and feel the need to TALK ABOUT IT ENDLESSLY. SCREW OFF. PREFERABLY SOON.The Exception: You are only bringing up cars to tell me you are giving me a new Lamborghini which I will sell for a shitload of money. Then, by all means feel free. 4. Those Bullshit "How are You" exchanges.

How are you??

Good! What about you??

Yeah I'm good.

Repeat endlessly for every sixty million encounters with other people you have during your life. Never has a single societal convention revealed more about the LIES of humanity than this one. For one, 98% of the time (Trust me, I did the trig) you don't actually care about how the person you're asking is. You just do it out of bullshit politeness. I don't actually find it that polite when you're consciously dishing up a BARREL OF LIES to somebody, but apparently I'm in the fucking minority as per usual. Secondly, when you say you're good, you're LYING. You're just saying you're good because that's what you're expected to say!! So this whole fucking thing is like a meat layer of layers between a sesame seed bun of lies then drizzled over with the secret sauce of LIES. I WONT HAVE IT ANYMORE.

The Exception: If you are on the side of the road bleeding out, I'm attempting to treat you and you're actually making improvement thanks to my emergency medical assistance, it is okay to tell me so when I ask how are you. That is IT. ALL. NO MORE.

There you have it. The first part of conversations I never want to have again EVER. There will be more, just because morons keep assailing me with conversational bullshit and never actually bringing up anything worthwhile. Goddamn them all.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Oh God, I havent done one of these in so long. In fact its been so long the last rants I've done have actually grown mould. Which is actually perfect, because they were so venomous that I'm going to take this mould and use it to create the world's most effective BIO WEAPON, engineered with dripping hatred to eradicate everything I hate from this FELL WORLD! Muahahahahaha!!! Well, let's get to it.

1. Idiot whiner complainers.

Oh dear lord. These days, I think there has been some sort of switch implanted in humanity, permanently set to 'on' that compels them by some groin pulling mechanism to whine and bitch at the most insignificant crap and then force people with ACTUAL problems to listen to them. Ugh. Exhibit A in this gallery of douchebaggery: A few years ago, New Zealand removed all their coins from circulation and replaced them with smaller more compact coins that were lighter, as well as doing away with the 5 cent coin entirely. Why did they do this? Because people were WHINING that coins were too heavy. And then, what came after this initiative? YOU GUESSED IT. People began WHINING that coins were TOO SMALL, TOO LIGHT and they couldnt differentiate them. The exact same people!! Exhibit B: Recently Anchor Milk, a large conglomerate milk company repackaged their milk in light proof bottles to aid taste and help milk last longer. Were people thankful for this development? No. REMARKABLE! I have actually heard this next complaint THREE times from THREE different people. They literally say, "now I dont know how much milk I've got left." You have got to be fucking kidding me. I'll tell you how you find that out, mother fucker. Lift the milk bottle up, place it over your fat, stupid whiner head and turn it upside down. If you get covered in milk, YOU'VE GOT MILK LEFT. Seriously people, get real problems that aren't milk, coins, sitting for 15 minutes in traffic or a niggle in your knee. Like Crohn's Disease or pain disorders.

2. Cooking shows. EVERYWHERE.

And on the fifty six thousandth day, when Pharaoh remained unmoved, Moses called down a plague of fucking cooking shows. Seriously, I would be surprised if there are actually any other shows being made right now for television other than fucking cooking shows. Every. Single. Night. My Kitchen Shitty Rules. Masterchef cooks gizzards. New Zealand's Greatest Bake Off. Kitchen Nightmares. How To Cook Albanian Muskrat: A Cooking Special. Why are we watching this shit?! Especially when a good solid, 85% of the food being cooked is just fine dining gut splurging nonsense that you are being manipulated to believe is actually EDIBLE. This is just some sort of conspiracy to make my stick something in a gas oven. Most likely my head.

3. Water Rates.

The other day, I got given my monthly water bill. Let's not even get into the fact that water falls from the fuck knuckle sky and I have to pay for it. No, this is even more egregious. So I look down the line of charges that they're about to insert like a fiery rod of financial flame into my rectum. I look at the top line. What does it say? "Actual water usage fee: $6.50". Oh well, that's some pocket change, not actually that bad. Then my poor eye peers downward. "Fixed water charges: $16.60". KISS MY ASS. SERIOUSLY GET DOWN THERE AND FUCKING PUCKER UP WITH YOUR BULLSHIT LECHEROUS EXCUSE TO MAKE ME PAY FOR INVISIBLE SHIT. Well I'm sorry, water people. I am charging YOU a fixed bill reading and envelope opening charge of $16.60, thus negating yours.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Popular music. The lowest common denominator of humanity. Stopped being good sometime around 1990. Somehow became even worse by 2000. In 2013, it is pretty much the most intellectually depraved, mindless, senseless, mind corrupting, repetitive bilge ever to seep forward from the infected teats of mankind. Today, we shall take a closer look at some of the words popular music is trying to sell us as truth, and see if they hold up under any sort of intellectual scrutiny.

1. "The Vengabus is coming".

Oh really? It's 'coming'? Well unfortunately, if I had stopped what I was doing to wait for this aforementioned bus, I would have long since starved to death. That's your infernal plan isn't it Vengaboys? You loudly proclaim the merits of this goddamn BUS over and over again in the most mind numbing, catchy manner possible, knowing that this will entice people to go out and wait for the bus. Then, in their dedication to all things Venga, they stay out there, waiting for the bus THAT NEVER COMES. This is all part of your cruel depopulation agenda and I see right through you. I won't wait for your goddamn bus anymore, you hear me?!

Conclusion: LIE. The Vengabus is not in fact coming. It probably doesn't exist.

2. "It's 11:30 and the club is jumping jumping".

First of all, it is necessary to discern the difference between "jumping" and "jumping jumping". I gather the latter implies an increase in intensity of the jumping involved. I could be wrong, but there is very little to go off in the lyrics to this song. The second question is, why does this unspecified 'club' only attain the level of "jumping jumping" at 11:30? Are we to believe that should the clock tick over to 11:31, the club will revert to merely "jumping", or even worse, that the club is no longer possessive of any level of jumping? And what is it about 11:30 that makes the club attain the level of "jumping jumping"? This seems like some sick temporal discrimination to me. Also, this bold proclamation of unbridled falsity assumes that there is no distinction in cultures in terms of the time that particular country's clubs reach the plateau of "jumping jumping". For a group of African American women, you would think that they would be more sensitive to other cultures. Apparently not.

Conclusion: LIE. Although this may have been true at the specific club at the specific time Destiny's Child got the inspiration for the song (or more likely, when their team of monkeys sitting at typewriters cranked it out), it is certainly not uniformly true across all clubs at 11:30, and it is exceedingly discriminatory to even imply it.

3. "She's a maniac on the floor, and she's dancing like she's never danced before".

Ooohhh look, this one is partially true!! First off, it seems somewhat unkind to label a girl dancing a maniac, unless in fact she was spinning around with pairs of scissors in her hands or something. Cause that shit is ill thought out and harmful right there. Putting aside the issue of the dancing girl's mental stability however, the second part of this proclamation is assuredly true. Even if this lady was seeking to perfectly imitate a time she had danced before (if she truly is a maniac, it is highly unlikely these thoughts would be occurring to her), such a task is simply impossible. Imitating in an exact manner each precise angle of movement of every muscle, sinew and limb would surely be a task that is beyond even the mightiest of cyborg dancing robots from the future. So congratulations, you tell the truth! This is another example of the degeneration of pop music, the oldest song is the one that tells the truth.

Conclusion: TRUE. Although her status as a maniac is debatable.

4. "The hips don't lie".

Hmmm. Yes. Although actually stating this as akin to stating other phrases of self evident ridiculousness like "Fish don't carry around scissors", "2x4s dont recite the periodic table" or even "shuttlecocks don't get addicted to heroin". Good job.

Conclusion: True, but who the fuck cares?

If anyone has any more proclamations of pop lyrics they wish me to run the finger over. Let me know and I shall eviscerate them for the pleasure of nobody.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Fluffy bunnies. That's right fluffy bunnies. This is a post dedicated to all the fantastic lovable things about fluffy bunnies.

1. They're FLUFFY.

Aww!! Look at it!! It's so fwuffy!! There is no possible way in the world that you can be unhapy looking at the severe onslaught of fluffiness coming from this bunny. It doesnt need an entire philosophical rant describing why the fluffiness is good, or what the fluffiness is... one just knows that it is fluffy, and it is cute.

2. They're BUNNIES.

Did bunnies ever hurt anybody?? Did they ever make anybody feel bad?? Is there a grand bunny conspiracy to bring down the entirety of humanity? I THINK NOT. Bunnies are pure goodness in little bunny balls of beauty.

3. SOMETIMES THERE'S MORE THAN ONE OF THEM.

What's better than a fluffy bunny? TWO FLUFFY BUNNIES.

4. Other cute animals love fluffy bunnies too!

Aww, they're BEST FRIENDS. :)

There you have it folks. Fluffy bunnies. No complex thought needed. Just look and love cute fluffy bunnies!!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

It has been a long absence my friends... and I hear the questions arising like mist over the mountaintop. Where have you been? Don't you know I depend on you for all of my entertainment needs? Even though I didnt know you were gone for a solitary second, do you know you'd better have a good explanation?

Well luckily I do.

The past five months, I have been hard at work in my patented ACME home laboratory. I designed a time machine. That's right, a TIME MACHINE. Yes, this is considered a difficult task by the majority of humankind, but then again, tying their shoelaces and stringing together two internally coherent thoughts in a logical chain is considered a difficult task by the majority of humanity, so that's probably not saying much. Due to my inherent genius, I found that the task barely rose to 'mildly challenging'. The hardest part was probably the flux capacitor, but after cobbling together a few gears, cranks, a quantum tunneller and two half cut celery sticks, it was bada bing, bada boom, bada time travel.

Now, as smart people know, there is one rule to successful time travel. NEVER GO INTO THE FUTURE. Why you ask? Well duh. Okay let's say in two weeks time the United States decides its a good idea to lob some nuclear bombs over at Kim Jong Uno Dos Treize or whatever his name is. Then, when doing his exercises in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin slips on a Russian banana peel and accidentally hits the button to launch all the nukes. So you arrive to a gigantic radioactive wasteland, irradiating you with a whole boatload of PAIN AND DEATH. That would be dumb. So you always go to the PAST, because you know that nothing of the sort happened there due to the fact that all modern history books are completely 100% accurate and not distorted in the least to fit any sort of mass control agenda (Omg, I actually said it with a straight face, I'm a legend.)

So, I cranked up my time machine and shot back into the past, so I could learn some answers to the mystery of existence. What mysteries you ask? Well I had many choices. I could go back and learn if Jesus Christ rose from the dead! I could go back and find the answer to if the killing of JFK was a conspiracy! I could go investigate a whole bunch of purported miracles first hand, shedding light on the possible nature of human existence! But there was one thing that plagued me more than anything.

WHAT COLOUR WERE THE DINOSAURS?

This is the sort of shit that keeps you up at the night. So I went back to the Jurassic Period. And what I found... was shocking. I found that Barney the Dinosaur is NOT just an innocent kids programme designed to convince unloved and abused kids that a guy in a sweaty costume loves them. IT WAS THE TRUTH ALL ALONG. SOMEONE KNEW GODDAMMIT. AND WE DIDNT LISTEN. OH THE HUMANITY. That's right people, they were purple. They were purple all along. And then on the way back my dialling mechanism broke and forced me to crashland in February of 2013, months after my original departure time.

I came back to a world that was shockingly the same as the one I left. There were philosophically incompetent idiots everywhere. However, I can deal with the dumbness of the world, as long as I'm FILTHY RICH. So I plan on going to the paleontology departments of the world with my discovery. Once MY NAME is in all the textbooks, I will make so much money I'll be able to fulfil my lifelong ambition of diving off a diving board into a vault of dollars. That's why I'm an evil genius, and you're not. Stay tuned for updates.